Assumptions

“One of the conditions of enlightenment has always been a willingness to let go of what we thought we knew in order to appreciate truths we had never dreamed of.”

– Karen Armstrong

This quote reminds me of something my best friend once said. “I love when my assumptions are proven wrong,” she told me. I am working to let go of my preconceived notions about the world, and appreciate new truths as they become revealed through insight, discernment and wisdom. My best friend and I grew up together in a cult-like religious community. This group started in Ann Arbor, Michigan as an evangelical outreach to students at the University of Michigan. It grew and became more and more restrictive. People began to interpret scripture literally. This rationalized interpretation of religion has resulted in a very modern phenomenon: fundamentalism. My best friend and I saw fundamentalism first hand. Men were not allowed to change babies’ diapers; women had to submit to the will of their husbands. Many women in this group gave the authority of God to the men in their lives as their “spiritual leaders.” I confidently rejected this fundamentalism and all that came with it.  

To accept dogma on someone else’s authority is “unskillful.” We must gain our spiritual understanding through our own quests, rather than giving that power away. Midrash is a concept meaning “to go in search of,” “to investigate,” and “to go in pursuit of something undiscovered.” There was very little midrash in the cult-like group we grew up in. Midrash requires constant reinterpretation and the ongoing, never-ending process of revelation. We need to be open to new revelation and work towards constant reinterpretation of truth, and we must direct our insights to the needs of the present day. We need midrash in our religious and scientific communities. I believe that discovery is ripe in the modern day scientific community, while our religious communities are frantically nailing down myths as truth. St. Augustine believed that whenever the literal meaning of scripture clashed with reliable scientific information, the interpreter must respect the integrity of science or he would bring scripture into disrepute.  

            I came across an interesting story about a teacher and a student trying to understand Brahman. The teacher told the student to put a lump of salt in a beaker. The student waited overnight and in the morning he could no longer see the lump of salt. Yet, the salt was still present throughout the water in the beaker. This is Brahman – the inner self in the world. Yajnavalkya, a seventh-century sage, explains:

You can’t see the Seer who does the seeing. You can’t hear the Hearer who does the hearing; you can’t think with the Thinker who does the thinking; and you can’t perceive the Perceiver who does the perceiving.

What is this Brahman? What is this unseen Seer? I rejected the fundamentalist religion of my childhood. I have assumed that I know certain things about the world.   

While in school at the University of Michigan, I worked at a Middle Eastern restaurant. My bosses gently but passionately hoped that I would come to believe in Islam. I listened to them with great curiosity, but have not been able to accept any specific religion due to my upbringing and exposure to fundamentalism. Karen Armstrong writes about kafirun aka “infidel” or “unbeliever.” This word has been misunderstood in its modern day usage. The root of this word, KFR, means: “’blatant ingratitude,’ a discourteous and arrogant refusal of something offered with great kindness.” I wonder if there is something out there, something like an unseen Seer, an unheard Hearer, and an unperceived Perceiver that is being offered to us with great kindness. I am trying to let go of what I thought I knew in order to appreciate new truths.

Does Nature Prove God: Excerpts from C.S. Lewis’ book The Problem of Pain

For a time, I believed that nature and science scream out evidence of God’s existence. My sister read the Tao of Physics and we had long discussions about nature and God. Just look around at sublime nature! The order within chaos of the earth among the stars blows my mind. Just looking at the Grand Canyon or the Swiss Alps or the ocean seemed proof that God exists. After much thought and reading, I am now calling that belief into question.  

Let’s look at the reality of nature – not an idealized version. The spectacle of the universe and nature is not so sublime as it is terrifying! With the consistency of death, pain and suffering among animals and humans just to survive, with black holes, and with the utter emptiness of the universe around us, all evidence points to a very dismal reality. Is God nature and revealed by nature? In the Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis writes: “The spectacle of the universe as revealed by experience can never have been the ground of religion: it must always have been something in spite of which religion, acquired from a different source, was held” (p. 13). Could it be possible that the revelation of God comes from outside of nature and science?     

Also, where did we get the idea that life on earth should be good, peaceful, and sustainable? Our very sun that gives us life is a ticking time bomb. Death beckons us at every corner. Where does our sense of outrage and injustice at suffering come from? I see children, animals, and innocent people suffering every day. I feel rage at the injustice in our world. But, where did that sense of injustice come from?

C.S. Lewis writes: “In a sense, [a righteous Lord] creates, rather than solves, the problem of pain, for pain would be no problem unless, side by side with our daily experience of this painful world, we had received what we think a good assurance that ultimate reality is righteous and loving” (p. 21). A small part of me believes in a just and righteous God. And if there is a God, I can’t believe in one that is proven by or synonymous with nature and science. At the same time, I want an answer to the suffering I see, because it seems wrong to me. I wonder, though, if the suffering in our world is enough to make one stop believing in God.  

Sometimes, during my depressed times, I mourn the suffering in the world. During these moments, all the world seems to be calling out in a composite suffering and it breaks my heart. C.S. Lewis makes another profound point. He writes: “…search all time and all space and you will not find that composite pain in anyone’s consciousness. There is no such thing as a sum of suffering, for no one suffers it” (p. 103). The greatest amount of suffering in the world is the suffering of one person at a time. This is no small amount and I mourn any amount experienced by others (and myself!). I actively work to end suffering. At the same time, there is comfort in putting suffering into perspective.

I have heard of the Jewish concepts of “Ein Sof” (the Deity prior to self-manifestation in the spiritual realm) and “Seder Hishtalshelus” (a concept similar to the Great Chain of Being - a chain-like process connecting the spiritual realm to the physical realm). These are interesting and new ideas to me. If there is a God, perhaps God is outside of nature, connected to us and intervening in our lives. But, if God is not nature or proven by nature, then where is the evidence of God’s existence? To this, I don’t have an answer.